Presently Mrs. Harrington's breath flagged, and the three women went away, back to the room they had been in before. Phyllis sat and let herself be talked to for a little longer. Then she rose impulsively.
"May I go back and see your son again for just a minute?" she asked, and had gone before Mrs. Harrington had finished her permission. She darted into the dark room before her courage had time to fail, and stood by the white couch again.
"Mr. Harrington," she said clearly, "I'm sorry you're tired, but I'm afraid I am going to have to ask you to listen to me. You know, don't you, that your mother plans to have me marry you, for a sort of interested head-nurse? Are you willing to have it happen? Because I won't do it unless you really prefer it."
"I don't mind," said Allan Harrington listlessly. "I suppose you are quiet and trustworthy, or De Guenther wouldn't have sent you. It will give mother a little peace and it makes no difference to me."
He closed his eyes and the subject at the same time.
"Well, then, that's all right," said Phyllis cheerfully, and started to go. Then, drawn back by a sudden, nervous temper-impulse, she moved back on him. "And let me tell you," she added, half-laughing, half-impertinently, "that if you ever get into my quiet, trustworthy clutches you may have an awful time! You're a very spoiled invalid."
She whisked out of the room before he could have gone very far with his reply. But he had not cared to reply, apparently. He lay unmoved and unmoving.
Phyllis discovered, poising breathless on the threshold, that somehow she had seen his eyes. They had been a little like the wolfhound's, a sort of wistful gold-brown.
For some reason she found that Allan Harrington's attitude of absolute detachment made the whole affair seem much easier for her. And when Mrs. Harrington slipped a solitaire diamond into her hand as she went, instead of disliking it she enjoyed its feel on her finger, and the flash of it in the light. She thanked Mrs. Harrington for it with real gratitude. But it made her feel more than ever engaged to marry her mother-in-law.
She walked home rather silently with Mrs. De Guenther. Only at the foot of the De Guenther steps, she made one absent remark.